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Nike Continues its Leadership of Marriage Equality in Oregon

Nike is fully supportive of the initiative to create marriage equality so our employees are treated fairly and with respect in the workplace and the community.

We are committed to diversity and inclusion and strive to treat our employees equally. We believe that diversity drives innovation and allows us to attract and retain world class talent. For Oregon businesses to attract and retain the best talent, we need fair and equitable laws that treat all Oregonians equally and prevent discrimination.

To support the efforts to bring marriage equality to Oregon, Nike has created the Nike Equality PAC to help raise funds from Nike-affiliated donors in support of marriage equality. We chose to set up the Nike Equality PAC so that Nike, and its employees if they choose, have a specific avenue to support campaign efforts that are directly related to winning marriage equality in Oregon.

The Nike Equality PAC has foundational funding of $280,000 which includes a $100,000 contribution from NIKE, Inc. and another $180,000 committed from Nike leaders. The PAC is online at www.NikeEqualityPAC.com.

Nike’s History of Equality

Nike was one of the first companies nearly 20 years ago to extend benefits to partners of either gender. In 2000, the company extended those benefits to the dependents of domestic partners.

In 2005, Nike was a national business trailblazer in supporting Oregon’s groundbreaking legislation to secure employment non-discrimination for the LGBT community and civil unions for same sex partners. In 2007, Nike built an Oregon business coalition to help successfully pass the state-level nondiscrimination and civil unions legislation.

Nike has been a long-time supporter of federal employment nondiscrimination legislation, and was also one of the lead companies to sign onto the business community amicus brief earlier this year before the US Supreme Court supporting the end of federal marriage discrimination and enabling recognition of same-sex civil marriage at the US federal government level.

Nike has supported marriage equality and LGBT non-discrimination legislation in other US states. Earlier in 2013, Nike began to help build business community support for the proposed Oregon initiative, the Freedom to Marry and Religious Protection Initiative, which would extend the freedom to marry in Oregon to same-sex couples while protecting religious institutions’ ability to perform marriages consistent with their beliefs.

Nike has consistently received 100% scores from the Human Rights Campaign for more than a decade.